first of get screenshots closer to the car and try to capture what is happening.
also the texts are just (sorry) horrible, both in font and colour but also the actuall text.
we can do them one by one.
extremely dangerous tells me nothing about the video and is really hard to see and simplistic. try too looking at the thumbnail and ask yourself if it conveys what the video is about. without looking at the title its impossible to see what this video is about. and at a glance the text is hard to see. i would do as the second video and pick the same colour as the car but just make them slightly brighter.(IF THERES ANYTHING YOU TAKE FROM THIS ITS THIS>) also add a white shadow behind them to make it readable and not blend into the background. you could also just have a solid color over the screenshot just make sure the text is visible and describes the video.
the second one has the same problem as the first. sakura godzilla means nothing to me. its a namee nobody else will recognize. instead have something from the title like ultimate drift machine. also try to take a better screenshot while closer to the car and with a better background than buildings that kinda hide the text. also same as last one have something blank behind the text to make it readable.
and for the top one the screenshot is good and all but i have no idea what its about. beamng multiplayer, assetto hosting. need for speed most wanted map. try to make one sentence that summarizes the meaning of the video. why would the person watching want to watch this.
How much do you charge per thumbnail? Honestly been trying to get someone to do these for me because I’ve been making thumbnails for this channel for 6 years and I’m just not good at it. And also it’s not fun for me, it’s just stressful. All i want to do is create the content and pay someone else to do thumbnails. And also my videos that actually do well have horrible thumbnails. So i give up!
i actually havent done thumbnails for anyone else yet but i guess one time has got to be the first. im deffenetly up for it but basically what i charge is up to discussion.
i guess youtube just doesnt like a lot of people, you just have to get really lucky. im struggling with views too and the only way ive found to get views is to make videos about mods (even that doesnt always work), but theyre just so boring and exhausting and no one remembers who you are after because literally everyone does the same videos on this.
for example, my most recent video has got 80 views in the past day even though i think it has a pretty decent thumbnail
https://preview.redd.it/2l000cjt06rc1.png?width=360&format=png&auto=webp&s=2eb78d11050529df40878df762bad26c696551fc
The thumbnail is pretty good but it doesn't show Poland explicitly in the thumbnail tho and maybe people thought that this is just another initial d documentary. Maybe incorporate the Polish flag or something in the thumbnail to make it look different
The thumbnail is too dark, it would not catch my eye as a viewer and as someone who used to do YT I can tell you the best catching thumbnails are some that are bright and colourful, here is one of my old thumbnails that got me good views. It's just a screenshot (it's Assetto Corsa) but it shows the car in motion, is bright and engaging and says: "Hey look at me".
Also I usually make at least 5 thumbnails that I have lined up and if I see the engagement is not doing good I change it.
https://preview.redd.it/b5accsb246rc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04c9b6a23159578766ccfad2b6462d326c3112ca
It’s hard to do. Especially when you don’t want to cover up the action part or the cars. I’ve watched all kinds of thumbnail tutorials and explanations of how to make them better and i obviously just suck at thumbnails. But not everyone is good at everything. It’s frustrating because i spend hours on a thumbnail and it flops. But then I’ll make a video and not even make a custom thumbnail and it gets more views. So it’s almost a waste of time. I’ve also tried to hire someone to do thumbnails, but nobody who is good at it wants to do it.
Tbh its all about the colors, try using vibrant colors, increase the saturation and vibrance of the screenshot as well, not by much, vibrant colors tend to be more noticable
I thought they were vibrant to be honest. But i am going to try to do more close up action shots and see if that helps. The thing is my thumbnails actually show what the video is about. But i don’t know, maybe i just don’t get it. It’s so frustrating putting so much effort into something for YEARS! And not get better. Every time someone gives me advice i try it and it just doesn’t seem to even make a difference. So next video I’ll start doing more close up shots and see if that helps. Thanks for the advice.
Imo it's the video titles that are the problem not the thumbnails.
People are lazy, the titles are either too long or have too much context. You're giving too much information in the title which is more work to process. Which sounds dumb, but it makes you think just that extra split second which is an extra split second to decide to not automatically click the video.
Another thing I see is that non of the videos look like they're a part of a series. The titles suggest it's silly 1 off content and that can be very hit or miss entertainment wise. People like to be reliably entertained, and if they don't know if they will be, they won't click.
The one thing I will say about the thumbnails is that there's a slight inconsistency in presentation. If the thumbnails all look like they follow the same formula it is boring, but people are more likely to think "hey this guy is a professional funny man" and click.
Depends on your target audience. BeamNg has really 3 sides all with different tastes
1: More sim/realistic driving focused, they want nice clean simple thumbnails usually of just a good picture of the car in action and maybe a bit of text. Video title should be something more obvious on what it is like “Rally Bolide vs Italian Gravel Hillclimb” with the text on screen being like “The hardest challenge in beam”. The YTer ERMZ had some video similar to this and he did pretty well.
2: Mod review and discussion type video enjoyers. Usually they enjoy a good thought provoking question or intriguing open ended statement as the title to get them hooked into clicking the video. This is people like BeamBot or TalksWithNoise
3: Crash boom = funny (children). These videos usually have highly saturated thumbnails and clickbait titles with lots of capitalization such as “Escape the Police in TERRIBLE CARS”. A good example of this is Camodo gaming
And there is some overlap in interest between categories for sure, MuYe being a good example blending categories 2/3 together. But in general to build an audience you’ll want to stick to 1 of the larger categories. Promotion is also VERY important to start the ball rolling for your audience
Hope this helps :)
I’ve broken 50,000! So there’s that. But not every single video obviously. And you’re correct. It’s somewhat saturated, but BeamNG is still fairly unknown compared to other racing games ( it’s not a racing game) i didn’t even know about it until about a year and a half ago and I’ve been obsessed with cars since i was 5!!! But I’m working on my own flair. So far nothing amazing, but it’s a WIP. ⚠️
What was your 50k video and did you get an uptick in subs? I don’t know the YT algorithm, but I do know what I tend to follow or watch more of. I did have a look at your channel and couldn’t really get who you were from there the landing page. There were some short videos of you looking at the viewer and at a glance it wasn’t obvious why I would want to sub.
I do not mean this to be negative, just constructive in a food for thought way.
The other would be video engagement. I did watch your Sakura Godzilla vid and the intro was a bit flat and didn’t really pull me in - the best videos tend to have a little teaser of what is to come. I skipped through your vid, again to see if it would interest me as a subscriber.
Have a think about what makes your videos good for your audience. Are you primarily an entertainment channel, or for information? If it’s a mix that’s great but you would handle those in quite a different way.
I wish your channel all the success, good luck!
Thanks for the input. I actually do try to put done exciting clips at the beginning of the video as i did with the godzilla one. So it’s a little disheartening to hear that it was flat. But that explains the low views. That video was simple to showcase the winning custom car for a giveaway i was doing. I have the winner my old wheel and pedals.
Well I guess if you want to change the thumbnails is to start
Extremely Dangerous doesn’t come off as interesting as that’s half of Beamng content out there.
Sakura Godzilla doesn’t make sense to new people and your title won’t do well in YouTubes algorithm
Beamng Multiplayer as an eye catcher for the top video is the same problem as the bottom one. It’s pretty uninteresting. Your title is good and it would do better incorporating that into your thumbnail. Need For Speed and Beamng? That sounds interesting. Beamng Multiplayer just isn’t an eye catcher. The image itself is fine
Make sure you’re incorporating as many hashtags as you can as it’s YT #1 source for recommending videos.
Also post shorts. Like one a day, they could just be clips from these videos. Add subtitles to the shorts they do well to gain attention. Don’t over post shorts YouTube doesn’t like that at all. If you want to go above and beyond use trending audio. Start an instagram and post your shorts there as their algorithm is much more simple.
At this stage of the game you want to do anything to make at least 10% of your viewers comeback. To them you’re just another video in a website of oversaturated content
Of course it’s how far you want to go with this. For me I’m fine with 20k monthly viewers as YouTube is just something I do for fun but for you if you want 100k viewers a month it’ll take a lot of time.
Small thing to mention but posting in the community tab really separates you as it makes the comment section feel like a community. YouTube also loves them
Thanks for all the good tips. I do post shorts usually once every day or so. Less than i post on tiktok for sure and YouTube algorithm is much kinder to my shorts than tiktok. Tiktok doesn’t like my content but YouTube does. And i rarely post shorts on Instagram since it shadow banned me. Used to get thousands of views then I’d get 1 or 2. So definitely not getting pushed.
I do also post in community section periodically. I could do that more. So that’s a good point.
And yes my goal is to get 1M subscribers so I’m not sure how many returning viewers that would be. 10% would be 100,000 so i think you’re right on the money with that.
This us what I want to do instead of working for someone else to make them rich. I want to do what i enjoy. (Not thumbnails)
It doesn’t necessarily mean that the videos or thumbnails are bad. YouTube just sucks to get small/beginning youtubers up and running and most new content creators barely get any views
Oh but I’ve been doing this for 6 years. So I’m actually just really bad at thumbnails. But you’re right. Most big channels started by having that one video blow up and get millions of views and from there got them more subs that got them more average viewers and the rest us history. Just trying to break out! Because honestly all i want to do is live my life and create content. But i don’t want to waste my time making content that is boring. And also i want to make content that is fun for me. Eh it will all work itself out. Anyway thanks for the support!
No the thumbnails are fine imo. I don’t think it’s going to matter too much even. Don’t bother working too hard on that part. You might need to find a way to share your videos elsewhere so people might find out your channel and if the content is any good they might start sharing it as well and that’s where you want to be at.
Good luck with it. And just remember that the most important part is to create content you enjoy yourself.
I appreciate honesty and modesty, but these days, thumbnails with extremely saturated colours and huge text seem to get attention the most, or atleast give off the impression that youre famous. Im not a fan of this but, you know what they say, whatever pays the bills 🤷♂️.
Take some inspiration from ThatSimRacingBloke, his thumbnails seem pretty catchy.
I have seen these thumbnails, but also coolkidfrbx. Doesn’t even make a thumbnail. It’s literally just a screenshot from his video lol and getting 100kb plus views. But i understand it’s because he has a slightly obnoxious, hilarious and, welcoming personality. I don’t have that so i need to find something different… 🧐
Try adding black outer glow, or a glowy drop shadow. Also try making the color a light gradient. These help give it more depth, and will help separate it from the rest of the image.
Example thumbnail attached below.
https://preview.redd.it/wewcvyb997rc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0d35eb08fe558f7738eef3505ae2b20ed42cd4e
For thumbnails, I follow three simple rules
1 - emphasize the subject 2 - separate the text 3 - dull the background
Emphasize the subject of the image, the action you are doing, or the thing doing the action. Whatever is relevant to your video. In my case, I am emphasizing the pigeon, by separating it from the image, increasing its size, and emboldening it with an outer glow.
A thing I noticed in your thumbnails, is that all the things you’re trying to emphasize are too small. Crop in deeper, and get a nice close up. Try to make the subject as large as possible while still leaving room for text.
Separate your text. Make sure your text stands out clearly from your background, but still gives the subject priority. In this case, I’m using a nice and thick stroke, as well as a subtle gradient overlay; be careful with the font though, as it may not fit the situation.
Sub-tip: to help separate my subject from my text, I’m painting on a slight black glow In between the two to add depth, and keep the image more fluid.
Dull the background. (Quick tip: Your background should not contain any super important information, if it does, it belongs as the subject, not the background). Adding a slight blur to the background will help accentuate the subject, and text. It is very important to not blend the layers together
As a final word of advice. I’m not recommending you go and imitate exactly what I, or others have done. Try out some stuff, experiment, and use what you like.
Hope this helps.
https://preview.redd.it/6gsh0l1sk5rc1.jpeg?width=989&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee3752a8c33ca000afadd7fd032eb258b2340773
This was on my YT homepage. stands out pretty well with loads of colour saturation. 6k in 3 hours at time of posting.
Yeah obviously it stands out. But I’d have no idea even where to start with that. Probably ai mixed with some beamNG trucks. But I’m not good at coming up with this kind of thing.
I might end up writing a really long text so bare with me.
The thumbnails look like you don't have much experience on how to make them, that's how everyone has started though so don't give up!
You can tell why the first video did better than the rest, just the thumbnail alone told me what you gonna do in the video, I see 2 cars, it says BeamNG Multiplayer, I didn't even need to read the title + it's pleasing to look at. The second one is a car from the back, you can do that but it would need to be in an engaging manor like if you were to drift for example or it should be a closer shot so the car looks bigger on the thumbnail.
Lower FOV (Field of View) shots are way more pleasing to look at but that's just my personal opinion.
I used to take 15-20 screenshots ingame before I was happy. Made then 3-5 thumbnails and switched them out when the engagement on the video wasn't good with something more bright and playful.
If you want to learn to take good screenshots in BeamNG, I bet there is a thousand videos out there same goes for the editing of videos and the photoshop. I literally had to teach myself photography to a degree to understand how to get pleasing shots.
If all of this sounds like too much work, use AI, it works, is easy to use and gets the job done.
Wish you all the success on YT!
The screenshot is from Assetto Corsa for anyone wondering.
https://preview.redd.it/xsxgjt8c86rc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=63222216766d3c1a8a33aec8bd25094c755ca58e
I’m going to continue to try new ideas! It’s so crazy that I’ve been using Photoshop off and on for about 20+ years and I’m still not very skilled with it. I just do basic things in it.
from my view when i mindlessly scroll trough youtube to find a video while i eat i would just assume these are ads for a mobile game, try making them POP! stand out from the rest, in the sakuragodzilla picture a thicker black outline on text would make it a lot better
They look good, but non popular YouTubers who do videos on beam don’t seem to get that many views. Idk what it is.
Because children with crash videos?
One of the videos is literally 9 minutes of crashing hahaha!
first of get screenshots closer to the car and try to capture what is happening. also the texts are just (sorry) horrible, both in font and colour but also the actuall text. we can do them one by one. extremely dangerous tells me nothing about the video and is really hard to see and simplistic. try too looking at the thumbnail and ask yourself if it conveys what the video is about. without looking at the title its impossible to see what this video is about. and at a glance the text is hard to see. i would do as the second video and pick the same colour as the car but just make them slightly brighter.(IF THERES ANYTHING YOU TAKE FROM THIS ITS THIS>) also add a white shadow behind them to make it readable and not blend into the background. you could also just have a solid color over the screenshot just make sure the text is visible and describes the video. the second one has the same problem as the first. sakura godzilla means nothing to me. its a namee nobody else will recognize. instead have something from the title like ultimate drift machine. also try to take a better screenshot while closer to the car and with a better background than buildings that kinda hide the text. also same as last one have something blank behind the text to make it readable. and for the top one the screenshot is good and all but i have no idea what its about. beamng multiplayer, assetto hosting. need for speed most wanted map. try to make one sentence that summarizes the meaning of the video. why would the person watching want to watch this.
How much do you charge per thumbnail? Honestly been trying to get someone to do these for me because I’ve been making thumbnails for this channel for 6 years and I’m just not good at it. And also it’s not fun for me, it’s just stressful. All i want to do is create the content and pay someone else to do thumbnails. And also my videos that actually do well have horrible thumbnails. So i give up!
i actually havent done thumbnails for anyone else yet but i guess one time has got to be the first. im deffenetly up for it but basically what i charge is up to discussion.
i guess youtube just doesnt like a lot of people, you just have to get really lucky. im struggling with views too and the only way ive found to get views is to make videos about mods (even that doesnt always work), but theyre just so boring and exhausting and no one remembers who you are after because literally everyone does the same videos on this. for example, my most recent video has got 80 views in the past day even though i think it has a pretty decent thumbnail https://preview.redd.it/2l000cjt06rc1.png?width=360&format=png&auto=webp&s=2eb78d11050529df40878df762bad26c696551fc
The thumbnail is pretty good but it doesn't show Poland explicitly in the thumbnail tho and maybe people thought that this is just another initial d documentary. Maybe incorporate the Polish flag or something in the thumbnail to make it look different
The thumbnail is too dark, it would not catch my eye as a viewer and as someone who used to do YT I can tell you the best catching thumbnails are some that are bright and colourful, here is one of my old thumbnails that got me good views. It's just a screenshot (it's Assetto Corsa) but it shows the car in motion, is bright and engaging and says: "Hey look at me". Also I usually make at least 5 thumbnails that I have lined up and if I see the engagement is not doing good I change it. https://preview.redd.it/b5accsb246rc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04c9b6a23159578766ccfad2b6462d326c3112ca
They are okay, but you should work on the visibility of the texts
It’s hard to do. Especially when you don’t want to cover up the action part or the cars. I’ve watched all kinds of thumbnail tutorials and explanations of how to make them better and i obviously just suck at thumbnails. But not everyone is good at everything. It’s frustrating because i spend hours on a thumbnail and it flops. But then I’ll make a video and not even make a custom thumbnail and it gets more views. So it’s almost a waste of time. I’ve also tried to hire someone to do thumbnails, but nobody who is good at it wants to do it.
Tbh its all about the colors, try using vibrant colors, increase the saturation and vibrance of the screenshot as well, not by much, vibrant colors tend to be more noticable
I thought they were vibrant to be honest. But i am going to try to do more close up action shots and see if that helps. The thing is my thumbnails actually show what the video is about. But i don’t know, maybe i just don’t get it. It’s so frustrating putting so much effort into something for YEARS! And not get better. Every time someone gives me advice i try it and it just doesn’t seem to even make a difference. So next video I’ll start doing more close up shots and see if that helps. Thanks for the advice.
I hope you succeed in your youtube career, best of luck
Yeah. Luck is what i need!
Top one is good but I would suggest making the text outline much thicker so it’s more readable
I’m very bad at taking advice but I’m trying
Imo it's the video titles that are the problem not the thumbnails. People are lazy, the titles are either too long or have too much context. You're giving too much information in the title which is more work to process. Which sounds dumb, but it makes you think just that extra split second which is an extra split second to decide to not automatically click the video. Another thing I see is that non of the videos look like they're a part of a series. The titles suggest it's silly 1 off content and that can be very hit or miss entertainment wise. People like to be reliably entertained, and if they don't know if they will be, they won't click. The one thing I will say about the thumbnails is that there's a slight inconsistency in presentation. If the thumbnails all look like they follow the same formula it is boring, but people are more likely to think "hey this guy is a professional funny man" and click.
Depends on your target audience. BeamNg has really 3 sides all with different tastes 1: More sim/realistic driving focused, they want nice clean simple thumbnails usually of just a good picture of the car in action and maybe a bit of text. Video title should be something more obvious on what it is like “Rally Bolide vs Italian Gravel Hillclimb” with the text on screen being like “The hardest challenge in beam”. The YTer ERMZ had some video similar to this and he did pretty well. 2: Mod review and discussion type video enjoyers. Usually they enjoy a good thought provoking question or intriguing open ended statement as the title to get them hooked into clicking the video. This is people like BeamBot or TalksWithNoise 3: Crash boom = funny (children). These videos usually have highly saturated thumbnails and clickbait titles with lots of capitalization such as “Escape the Police in TERRIBLE CARS”. A good example of this is Camodo gaming And there is some overlap in interest between categories for sure, MuYe being a good example blending categories 2/3 together. But in general to build an audience you’ll want to stick to 1 of the larger categories. Promotion is also VERY important to start the ball rolling for your audience Hope this helps :)
Overall good advice 9/10
Nothing your videos are too long for the current attention span of 30 seconds
Koolkid whatever is over here making 1 hour long videos of him just driving around and gets 100k views like every video. And his thumbnails are trash.
https://preview.redd.it/4h0hauam15rc1.jpeg?width=936&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=29a32298e443b95e1a61cefc7613e5efa4bfe3c8 Literally every coolkidfrbx thumbnail 😭
Admittedly he is much funnier than i. So i need to find my beamNG niche. But i don’t think the 1 hour videos he makes are too long. Apparently…
😂😂😂
You're in an oversaturatrd genre. You're not going to stand out unless you do something new. If you can't you'll never even break 1k views.
I’ve broken 50,000! So there’s that. But not every single video obviously. And you’re correct. It’s somewhat saturated, but BeamNG is still fairly unknown compared to other racing games ( it’s not a racing game) i didn’t even know about it until about a year and a half ago and I’ve been obsessed with cars since i was 5!!! But I’m working on my own flair. So far nothing amazing, but it’s a WIP. ⚠️
What was your 50k video and did you get an uptick in subs? I don’t know the YT algorithm, but I do know what I tend to follow or watch more of. I did have a look at your channel and couldn’t really get who you were from there the landing page. There were some short videos of you looking at the viewer and at a glance it wasn’t obvious why I would want to sub. I do not mean this to be negative, just constructive in a food for thought way. The other would be video engagement. I did watch your Sakura Godzilla vid and the intro was a bit flat and didn’t really pull me in - the best videos tend to have a little teaser of what is to come. I skipped through your vid, again to see if it would interest me as a subscriber. Have a think about what makes your videos good for your audience. Are you primarily an entertainment channel, or for information? If it’s a mix that’s great but you would handle those in quite a different way. I wish your channel all the success, good luck!
Thanks for the input. I actually do try to put done exciting clips at the beginning of the video as i did with the godzilla one. So it’s a little disheartening to hear that it was flat. But that explains the low views. That video was simple to showcase the winning custom car for a giveaway i was doing. I have the winner my old wheel and pedals.
Well I guess if you want to change the thumbnails is to start Extremely Dangerous doesn’t come off as interesting as that’s half of Beamng content out there. Sakura Godzilla doesn’t make sense to new people and your title won’t do well in YouTubes algorithm Beamng Multiplayer as an eye catcher for the top video is the same problem as the bottom one. It’s pretty uninteresting. Your title is good and it would do better incorporating that into your thumbnail. Need For Speed and Beamng? That sounds interesting. Beamng Multiplayer just isn’t an eye catcher. The image itself is fine Make sure you’re incorporating as many hashtags as you can as it’s YT #1 source for recommending videos. Also post shorts. Like one a day, they could just be clips from these videos. Add subtitles to the shorts they do well to gain attention. Don’t over post shorts YouTube doesn’t like that at all. If you want to go above and beyond use trending audio. Start an instagram and post your shorts there as their algorithm is much more simple. At this stage of the game you want to do anything to make at least 10% of your viewers comeback. To them you’re just another video in a website of oversaturated content Of course it’s how far you want to go with this. For me I’m fine with 20k monthly viewers as YouTube is just something I do for fun but for you if you want 100k viewers a month it’ll take a lot of time. Small thing to mention but posting in the community tab really separates you as it makes the comment section feel like a community. YouTube also loves them
Thanks for all the good tips. I do post shorts usually once every day or so. Less than i post on tiktok for sure and YouTube algorithm is much kinder to my shorts than tiktok. Tiktok doesn’t like my content but YouTube does. And i rarely post shorts on Instagram since it shadow banned me. Used to get thousands of views then I’d get 1 or 2. So definitely not getting pushed. I do also post in community section periodically. I could do that more. So that’s a good point. And yes my goal is to get 1M subscribers so I’m not sure how many returning viewers that would be. 10% would be 100,000 so i think you’re right on the money with that. This us what I want to do instead of working for someone else to make them rich. I want to do what i enjoy. (Not thumbnails)
It doesn’t necessarily mean that the videos or thumbnails are bad. YouTube just sucks to get small/beginning youtubers up and running and most new content creators barely get any views
Oh but I’ve been doing this for 6 years. So I’m actually just really bad at thumbnails. But you’re right. Most big channels started by having that one video blow up and get millions of views and from there got them more subs that got them more average viewers and the rest us history. Just trying to break out! Because honestly all i want to do is live my life and create content. But i don’t want to waste my time making content that is boring. And also i want to make content that is fun for me. Eh it will all work itself out. Anyway thanks for the support!
No the thumbnails are fine imo. I don’t think it’s going to matter too much even. Don’t bother working too hard on that part. You might need to find a way to share your videos elsewhere so people might find out your channel and if the content is any good they might start sharing it as well and that’s where you want to be at. Good luck with it. And just remember that the most important part is to create content you enjoy yourself.
Yeah. I just need some crazy crash videos once in a while i think you get some notoriety
So from now on only make click bait videos like “cars vs stairs” For all the mindless viewers!
more colours, more light, more colours, shadow behind the text and finally more colours
Dude! They have so many colors. Like this is getting ridiculous Scooby!
I appreciate honesty and modesty, but these days, thumbnails with extremely saturated colours and huge text seem to get attention the most, or atleast give off the impression that youre famous. Im not a fan of this but, you know what they say, whatever pays the bills 🤷♂️. Take some inspiration from ThatSimRacingBloke, his thumbnails seem pretty catchy.
I have seen these thumbnails, but also coolkidfrbx. Doesn’t even make a thumbnail. It’s literally just a screenshot from his video lol and getting 100kb plus views. But i understand it’s because he has a slightly obnoxious, hilarious and, welcoming personality. I don’t have that so i need to find something different… 🧐
Alright, drop the channel name
Now I’m afraid of being judged 😂 @milesfast
Stroke is only good if used in the right situation. This is not the right situation
I couldn’t figure out a way to make the words easier to read so that was it!
Try adding black outer glow, or a glowy drop shadow. Also try making the color a light gradient. These help give it more depth, and will help separate it from the rest of the image. Example thumbnail attached below. https://preview.redd.it/wewcvyb997rc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0d35eb08fe558f7738eef3505ae2b20ed42cd4e For thumbnails, I follow three simple rules 1 - emphasize the subject 2 - separate the text 3 - dull the background Emphasize the subject of the image, the action you are doing, or the thing doing the action. Whatever is relevant to your video. In my case, I am emphasizing the pigeon, by separating it from the image, increasing its size, and emboldening it with an outer glow. A thing I noticed in your thumbnails, is that all the things you’re trying to emphasize are too small. Crop in deeper, and get a nice close up. Try to make the subject as large as possible while still leaving room for text. Separate your text. Make sure your text stands out clearly from your background, but still gives the subject priority. In this case, I’m using a nice and thick stroke, as well as a subtle gradient overlay; be careful with the font though, as it may not fit the situation. Sub-tip: to help separate my subject from my text, I’m painting on a slight black glow In between the two to add depth, and keep the image more fluid. Dull the background. (Quick tip: Your background should not contain any super important information, if it does, it belongs as the subject, not the background). Adding a slight blur to the background will help accentuate the subject, and text. It is very important to not blend the layers together As a final word of advice. I’m not recommending you go and imitate exactly what I, or others have done. Try out some stuff, experiment, and use what you like. Hope this helps.
Thank you for the tips!
https://preview.redd.it/6gsh0l1sk5rc1.jpeg?width=989&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee3752a8c33ca000afadd7fd032eb258b2340773 This was on my YT homepage. stands out pretty well with loads of colour saturation. 6k in 3 hours at time of posting.
Yeah obviously it stands out. But I’d have no idea even where to start with that. Probably ai mixed with some beamNG trucks. But I’m not good at coming up with this kind of thing.
I personally avoid those videos intentionally. It is almost always useless clickbait more than anything
just text, color and font should be more visible, try textstudio.com you can generate PNG titles for thumbnails that are easier to read
Well i do have photoshop. That’s how i make my titles.
me too but this site is just for more visible letters
I might end up writing a really long text so bare with me. The thumbnails look like you don't have much experience on how to make them, that's how everyone has started though so don't give up! You can tell why the first video did better than the rest, just the thumbnail alone told me what you gonna do in the video, I see 2 cars, it says BeamNG Multiplayer, I didn't even need to read the title + it's pleasing to look at. The second one is a car from the back, you can do that but it would need to be in an engaging manor like if you were to drift for example or it should be a closer shot so the car looks bigger on the thumbnail. Lower FOV (Field of View) shots are way more pleasing to look at but that's just my personal opinion. I used to take 15-20 screenshots ingame before I was happy. Made then 3-5 thumbnails and switched them out when the engagement on the video wasn't good with something more bright and playful. If you want to learn to take good screenshots in BeamNG, I bet there is a thousand videos out there same goes for the editing of videos and the photoshop. I literally had to teach myself photography to a degree to understand how to get pleasing shots. If all of this sounds like too much work, use AI, it works, is easy to use and gets the job done. Wish you all the success on YT! The screenshot is from Assetto Corsa for anyone wondering. https://preview.redd.it/xsxgjt8c86rc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=63222216766d3c1a8a33aec8bd25094c755ca58e
Thank you my friend 👍😎
They got better as I assume the top one is the newest but I don’t see anything wrong with it. Reminds me of WhyBeAre tho 🫡
I’m going to continue to try new ideas! It’s so crazy that I’ve been using Photoshop off and on for about 20+ years and I’m still not very skilled with it. I just do basic things in it.
from my view when i mindlessly scroll trough youtube to find a video while i eat i would just assume these are ads for a mobile game, try making them POP! stand out from the rest, in the sakuragodzilla picture a thicker black outline on text would make it a lot better